


Clueless

by DeathByStorm



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Shiro (Voltron) is a Dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathByStorm/pseuds/DeathByStorm
Summary: “Lance? Where did you get those?” he asked.“Shiro found these and gave them to me,” Lance said. He held up the flowers so that Hunk could get a closer look. “He said he wanted to cheer me up. Nice, aren’t they?”“Please tell me you’re kidding."“Hunk, I’m not kidding,” Lance said.“You are both awful at this!”“Awful at what?”





	Clueless

**Author's Note:**

> Did I write another clueless mutual pining Shance fic instead of working on my multiple WIPs? Yes. Yes, I did. 
> 
> As always, thank you to the lovely [Eilera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eilera/pseuds/Eilera) for betaing.

Lance had a problem.

“Good work today, team.” Shiro removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm. His face was pleasantly flushed from the drills they’d been running. “That was our best time yet.”

Lance felt his face heat up and he turned away. He covered his red cheeks with one hand and began marching towards the door determinedly.

“Lance!”

Lance paused, and turned around. Shiro stopped in front of him.

“What can I do for you, oh fearless leader?” He asked.

Shiro scratched the back of his neck and looked over him. “I just wanted to say good job. I’ve never seen you shoot as well as you did today and that’s saying something.”

“Th-thanks, Shiro,” Lance said. “You know, you were pretty awesome yourself. You took out that gladiator like it was nothing.”

Shiro lit up at his words. He smiled and clapped his hand on Lance’s shoulder. The contact sent warmth rushing to his very toes. “It was a team effort.”

Lance couldn’t help but think that Shiro looked best when he was smiling like he was right now. Where the expression reached the corner of his eyes. Lance was so focused on Shiro that he tripped over his own feet as they headed towards the door. They tangled together and he face-planted on the floor along with his dignity.

“Lance are you alright?” Shiro offered his hand and hauled Lance to his feet.

“Haha, nothing hurt but my pride,” Lance said weakly, wishing that the ground would just swallow him up and let him fall into the unending chasm of space.

The floor, however, was a cold heartless bitch and was content to let Lance live with his shame.

Shiro looked him up and down. “Are you sure you’re okay? I've given Coran a hand around the med bay before and can patch you up."

The offer was so tempting that Lance almost considered faking an injury just to get Shiro to touch him.

“Hmm if I didn’t know better, I would say that was an excuse to get your hands all over me,” Lance purred.

"It seems you've caught me,” Shiro said. He leaned closer. “Now what're you going to do about it?”

Lance actually let out a tiny groan at the thought of Shiro’s hands all over him. Some of the excess blood in his face rushed south and- okay, it was time to abort mission. Shiro was clearly far better at this than he had any right to be.

“I-I’m fine,” he said in a voice that definitely didn’t come out as a squeak.

“You know where to find me if you change your mind,” Shiro said with a smile. And then the jerk gave him a wink for good measure before heading toward the door.

Lance took a great heaving gasp of air because apparently his lungs had forgotten how to function during that exchange.

There was some soft snickering in the background that he recognized as Pidge. He turned and shot her a glare. She jerked her head at Shiro’s retreating figure and batted her eyelashes. Lance gave her his darkest scowl and turned to follow Shiro out.

You see, lately every time he was anywhere near Shiro, he would go red. Or trip over something. Or generally just make a complete fool of himself.

He needed to get control of himself before Shiro figured it all out.

He just had to act normal.

Easy.

*

It was not easy.

*

Lance slipped out of the communal showering area and peeked around the corner. After the whole debacle with Shiro earlier, he wasn’t quite ready to face him yet. Excellent. The coast was clear. He stepped forward, rounded the next corner and then slammed into something solid and warm. Papers and a bundle of flowers went flying as Shiro caught Lance before he hit the floor.

Lance looked up at him and managed to fight off the blush that was threatening to bloom across his face. At least this time, he wasn’t the only one embarrassed as Shiro was flushed as well.

"Lance, are you alright?"

"I'm okay. Sorry, Shiro," Lance moved to step back forcing Shiro to let go of him. "Here, I'll help you clean up."

"Lance that's not-"

Lance snatched the sketchbook, because that was what the papers were, off the ground.

“What is this?” He asked.

Written across it were characters in Japanese and English. Of course, he couldn’t read Japanese, but the English ones were stark as day to him. Lance Shirogane-McClain, Takashi Shirogane-McClain and just Lance’s name scrawled out in spidery writing with a painstakingly drawn lopsided heart around it.

“I was practicing my calligraphy. It helps with keeping my hand calibrated,” Shiro said. There was a flush across his cheeks as he elaborated. “It can be a dry task, so I write out things that make me happy.”

“Guh,” was Lance’s brilliant answer. His name made Shiro happy? Well, he was glad that he could help Shiro in some way at least. He knew that Shiro had it rougher than any of them, even if he did his best to hide it from the team.

Shiro gently tugged the book out of Lance’s hands and replaced it with the flowers. He snapped the book shut and tucked it under his arm.

“These are for you,” Shiro said. “To brighten your day.”

Lance took them on autopilot because that was what you did when the man of your dreams got you flowers. They were blue, but reminded him of lilies. A wave of homesickness rushed through him.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Shiro said warmly. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Shiro slipped around Lance and headed down the hall. Lance turned to watch his retreating figure because he couldn’t not.

“Shiro!”

Shiro stopped and turned.

Lance opened his mouth and shut it. “See you later,” he finally managed.

Shiro gave him a little wave and continued on his way.

*

“It’s awful.” Lance flopped on the kitchen counter later that evening. “He has to know by now.”

Hunk made a sympathetic noise as he pulled his latest creation out of the oven. “Well, has he said anything to you about it?”

Lance let out a moan and buried his head in his arms. “He’s too nice to say anything, Hunk! You saw what happened earlier today.”

“Yeah that was pretty bad.”

“He hates me now,” Lance whined. “I was bulletproof! Getting the girls left and right. How could this happen to me? Lancey Lance?”

Hunk leaned against the counter beside him. “I know it sounds crazy, but have you talked to him about it?”

“Oh sure, Hunk. I can just go up to him and be like ‘Shiro, you and I both know that I have a big gay crush on you and you’ll never return my feelings. Let’s talk about it anyway and make it even more uncomfortable than it already is.’”

“Chill out, it was just a suggestion. Jeez,” Hunk said. “Look, you know none of us will say anything about it-“

Lance raised his eyebrow.

“Okay, you got me. If he so much as looks in my direction, I’ll crack. I’m not built for confrontation!”

“Hunk! This is important,” Lance said.

“Sorry, Lance.”

“It’s fine. I haven’t exactly been subtle.”

Hunk leaned over and wrapped his arm around Lance’s shoulders in a consoling manner. His jaw dropped, and his eyes widened as he stared at the bundle of flowers in Lance’s lap.

“Lance? Where did you get those?” he asked.

“Shiro found these and gave them to me,” Lance said.

He held up the flowers so that Hunk could get a closer look. “He said he wanted to cheer me up. Nice, aren’t they?” 

“Please tell me you’re kidding,”

“Hunk, I’m not kidding,” Lance said.

“You are both awful at this!”

“Awful at what?”

Hunk groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I can’t believe - Lance, have you thought maybe, possibly that Shiro might like you too?”

Lance shook his head. “Nope, no way. No how. He would’ve said something by now.”

Hunk looked even more pained for some reason. “I think it would be best to let you guys figure it out yourselves…is what I would say if I didn’t love meddling so much.”

He lifted some cookies off the tray and placed them on a plate.

“Take these to Shiro and tell him,” Hunk said.

“I told you he already knows,” Lance snapped and pushed the cookies back at Hunk.

Hunk shoved the cookies back at him. “You don’t seem so sure about that. You keep contradicting yourself.”

“Lance! There you are.”

Lance jumped out of his skin and the plate of cookies slipped from his fingers. Hunk reached out and caught the it without so much as blinking.

Hunk cleared his throat loudly. “I’ll just be going. Lance made these cookies for you.”

“Hunk wait-“

“I have to help Pidge with a project. I’ll see you later.”

With that, he shoved the plate back into Lance’s hands and gave him a wink.

‘Good luck’ Hunk mouthed at him and shot him a thumbs up for good measure before booking it out of there. Lance shook his head. He loved Hunk, but any good wingman should know a hopeless situation when he saw one.

Shiro snatched one off the plate and bit into it with a hum. “They’re very good, Lance.”

“Eep,” Lance said intelligently. He almost dropped the plate again and Shiro reached out and placed it on the counter before another accident could happen.

“I’m usually not this clumsy,” Lance said. Was he blushing right now? He reached up and touched one of his overheated cheeks. Yes. Yes he was.

“I happen to think it’s cute.”

“You think me dropping stuff everywhere and running into things is cute.”

It was times like this that Lance wondered how this was his life.

Shiro coloured a little. “Well, when you put it that way – I actually came here to ask you if you wanted to watch a movie together.”

“Sure. I’ll just get the others,” Lance said. “Meet you in the common room?”

“It would just be you and me.” Lance’s heart leapt. Maybe Hunk was right. Maybe – “It’ll be a good bonding activity between us as leader and second in command.”

Maybe he should stop getting his hopes up.

“Uh, sure,” Lance said. He curled in a little on himself.

“You sure you’re not busy?”

“For you, I have all the time in the world,” Lance batted his eyes flirtatiously before he could stop himself.

Shiro ran shaking fingers through his hair floof. “Shall we?”

Lance blinked. Well, that was a very different reaction than the last time he'd hit on Shiro. 

“Just a sec.” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. He gently placed the flowers in the makeshift case and looked up to see Shiro watching him with a soft look in his eyes. Lance shook it off and grabbed the plate of cookies off of the counter to give his hands something to do. “Lead the way, fearless leader.”

True to Shiro’s word, the common room was abandoned except for the two of them.

“What movie did you want to watch?”

Lance shrugged. “They’re all in Altean, so surprise me?”

“A surprise it is,” Shiro pulled out a case at random.

Lance settled down on the couch and ogled Shiro’s butt as he bent down and struggled with the player. It was glorious, and Lance had to quickly double check to make sure he wasn’t drooling.

It amazed Lance how old fashioned the Alteans were in some respects. Storing their media on physical disks was something that wasn’t very common on Earth anymore and they were light-years behind technology wise.

It turned out to be a romance movie. Which was fine by Lance. They were easy to follow even if he didn’t understand the language though this one in particular was a little over the top. He watched as the actress spurned the handsome Altean's advances.

“She doesn’t deserve you!” Lance kind of wished he had popcorn to throw at the screen as the main love interest waved her hand coyly at the main character on the screen before boarding a spaceship to take her who knows where. There was a flash of her saddened face out of the view of the main character as the doors closed.

“Maybe she just doesn’t know that he's interested,” Shiro said.

“Oh, come on,” Lance said. “He gave her flowers, he flirted with her, and gave her that bracelet that Allura told us was a traditional Altean courting gift. How could she not know?”

Shiro groaned and buried his face in his hands. “It’s more likely than you think. People can be pretty blind sometimes. It’s even more likely if they have a habit of doubting themselves.”

Lance hummed and bit into another cookie. He looked at Shiro, who was lovely even when he was exasperated and took a deep breath. Maybe it was time to let him go and try to move on. He needed to stop with this foolish hope that Shiro could ever be interested in, well, someone who was just him.

“Hey Shiro, what do you look for in a boyfriend?”

Shiro smiled in a very soft peculiar way. “Well, he has to be handsome, brave, daring…”

“What else?” Lance breathed.

“Hmm,” Shiro sidled up to him on the couch close enough that Lance could feel the heat of him. He swallowed hard and tried and failed to fight off the hectic blush that he could feel rising in his cheeks. Shiro reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind Lance’s ear with a tender expression. Lance couldn’t help but lean into the touch a little and felt guilty for doing so. Shiro didn’t know how he felt. It was wrong to take advantage of him in such a way. And he'd just decided to move on! Damn his poor heart. “An excellent shot, pilot, and friend.”

Lance blinked. Well, at least I’m halfway there.

"Lance, I was talking about you.”

“M-me?” he squeaked. Apparently, he’d said that out loud. He jumped to his feet and gestured to himself. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person here?”

“There isn’t anyone else here, Lance,” Shiro said. “I made sure of it.”

“Oh,” he said faintly. He flopped back down on the couch beside Shiro.

“You like me?” Lance’s voice was soft.

“I thought I was obvious.” Shiro reached out and cupped Lance’s jaw with his hand. Lance closed his eyes just so he could relished the feel of Shiro’s skin against his. “Did you think otherwise?”

“It’s just – “ He smiled despite himself. Shiro liked him back. How had this happened? Why did the person he liked have such poor judgement? “No one’s liked me back before. At least not someone who I liked as well. And you’re you! I didn’t think I had a chance.”

“You have far more than just a chance,” Shiro said. “I want to be with you. I like you far more than I ever expected to. You’re beautiful, Lance.”

To Lance’s horror, tears began to well up in his eyes. He ducked away quickly and tried drying them before Shiro could notice.

“You’re beautiful too,” Lance said. His voice shook. “And brave and wonderful and a complete dork. I really like you too.”

“And Lance, you’re worth it,” Shiro said.

And that was it. He was really crying now. Shiro reached out and brushed away some of Lance’s tears before pulling him into a tight. Lance was practically in his lap at this point and he trembled a little before he buried his face against Shiro’s neck.

He pulled back after the tears stopped. “Sorry for getting your shirt wet.”

“No need to apologize,” Shiro said and brushed his Galra hand along the line of Lance’s jaw.

Lance laughed a little hoarsely. He wrapped his fingers around Shiro’s hand and kissed the metal palm. “Is this okay?"

Shiro nodded wordlessly before drawing him in again. Lance met him halfway in a chaste kiss before leaning his forehead against Shiro’s.

He ran his fingers through Shiro’ s hair. “Shiro-“

“Well, it took you guys long enough,” Pidge said.

Lance let out an unholy shriek and jumped off Shiro’s lap. He pointed a shaking finger in her direction. “You were spying on us you – you voyeur!”

“Please,” Pidge snorted. “I was profiting off of you. I won the bet after all. Hunk bet that Lance would be the one to confess, but I knew it would be Shiro.”

“You bet on us?!”

“Pidge, it wasn’t nice of you to bet on your teammates,” Shiro let out a long suffering sigh.

“Oh please,” Pidge snorted. “Matt told me the stuff you used to get up to.”

“Well, you got me there,” Shiro said with a wry smile. “Still though-”

“Yeah, yeah, have fun, lovebirds,” Pidge waved her hand at them dismissively as she headed out. “Oh, and make sure to keep it PG. We all use that couch.”

“Pidge!” Lance said.

She cackled as she closed the door behind her.

“The mood’s completely ruined now!” Lance grumbled, leaning back against the couch and folding his arms.

Shiro smiled at him and opened his arms and who was Lance to resist such sweet temptation? He leaned forward and curled up into Shiro’s embrace.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t completely ruined.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](https://www.deathbystorm.tumblr.com)
> 
> I swear I didn't mean to make Lance cry. It just happened D:


End file.
